Polish Pastafarian movement

Polish Pastafarian movement

I'm creating this discussion to mention the doings of the Pastafarians in Poland and our struggles with the Polish Government for Pastafarianism to get official recognition as an legit religion.

For almost a year now (we began at the end of July 2012) we are struggling with our Public Administration and the Ministry of Administration and Digitalization to officially recognise Polish Pastafarianism as a legit religious organisation. We fulfilled all the necessary law obligations to be one, more than a 100 Polish citizens declared that they want the creation of the Church of FSM (the declaration must be signed in the presence of a lawyer), and we prepared and sent the necessary documents. In theory we should be registered in a matter of three months but the Government representatives denied us this saying that we really don’t believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This means that in Poland a state official is able to say if someone’s faith is true or not, which we find grotesque at the least. In a later declaration, in the opinion of specialists we Pastafarians can believe individually in the FSM but we cannot believe in Him officially.

The administrative procedure has ended now with the denial of our plea, so the case on 27 of June 2013 was sent to the Administrative Court and now we are awaiting the date of the trial, which will possibly be in a three month period from now (the date of the trial is set up in reference to the amount of work the Court has, there is no end-date for this procedure but checking how things worked out in other cases, the three month period is the most possible). The trial will be held in Warsaw and many Pastafarians will surely attend to it. If the Court would prove us right, we will be the first country in Europe in which Pastafarianism is officially recognised as a religion. If the Court’s decision will be unfavourable for us, we will push the cases further to the National Court of Administration and if there we will fail, there is always the EU Strasburg Court of Human Rights to which we are willing to go if it will be necessary.

Why we are trying to register Pastafarianism as a religion? Because, by the law and Constitution we have a right to do so. The logical fundaments of our faith in His Noodliness are the same or even more probable as the faith in God, Jahwe or Allah, so why they can be a legit religion and not us? The other thing is that by registering our religion, we want to show, in a typically Pastafarian way, the amount of influence and impact religion has on politics and the state which should be by the Constitution strictly secular. One aspect of this influence, the financial one I’ll present below.

In Poland religious organisations (all 170 of them) can count on an serious amount of tax and legal benefits from the state. The greatest benefactor of those is the dominant Polish Catholic Church which gets from Government funds above 700 mln zlotych (about 230 mln US dollars) yearly, those are funds from the budget, they come from the taxpayers pocket, Catholic or non-Catholic alike. And now, the Government issues a law that will grant every taxpayer a chance to donate 0,5% of his yearly tax to a religious organisation of his choosing, which will give the Catholic Church alone another 200 mln zlotych yearly without cutting any of the previous funds. This alone is outraging but wait there is more. The non-believer taxpayers wont have the chance to donate that 0,5% to any other secular organisation. That means, that the atheist or agnostic citizens of Poland will in fact pay higher taxes because they wont have the chance to decide about their 0,5%.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will offer them an option as most of its future founding will go to charity and supporting secular and freethinking movements, but it still isn’t the solution to Poland’s religion-government problem. We hope, that when people see, that the Government is funding the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, they will realise that something isn’t wrong with us, but with the system.

The Pastafarian religion in Poland is getting stronger each day. . Poland is no longer a 100% Catholic country. We have more than 17 000 Pastafarian enthusiasts on Facebook and much more apart of it. Our numbers grow every day, there is even a strong group of Christians that support our cause, who are simply outraged by the state of secularism in Poland and the doings of the Catholic Church.

I’m aware that I didn’t said all that goes with this topic. If someone would be interested to find out more I give the address of our website www.kosciol-spaghetti.pl and our Fanpage on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pklps its in Polish though, so I don’t know of how much help it will be

If you want to find out more you can also contact me on [email protected] , as you can see I’m not to fluent in English but I’ll happily answer any questions.

In Poland religious organisations (all 170 of them) can count on an serious amount of tax and legal benefits from the state. The greatest benefactor of those is the dominant Polish Catholic Church which gets from Government funds above 700 mln zlotych (about 230 mln US dollars) yearly, those are funds from the budget, they come from the taxpayers pocket, Catholic or non-Catholic alike. And now, the Government issues a law that will grant every taxpayer a chance to donate 0,5% of his yearly tax to a religious organisation of his choosing, which will give the Catholic Church alone another 200 mln zlotych yearly without cutting any of the previous funds. This alone is outraging but wait there is more. The non-believer taxpayers wont have the chance to donate that 0,5% to any other secular organisation. That means, that the atheist or agnostic citizens of Poland will in fact pay higher taxes because they wont have the chance to decide about their 0,5%.

This sounds like a joke? A 1% tax for religious organisation. Nice… I’d rather spend that on my local public school or hospital, but hey.

Polish tax payers for about 10 years can give their 1% tax to any foundation they like, animal shelters, hospitals and so on, even on religious organisations if they like. Unfortunately the new 0,5% of their taxes will be ONLY for religious organisations. As I said in the discussion if you wont donate it to the Church that 0,5% will go as the rest to the budget. This discriminates people not asotiated with any religion, as they in fact will pay 0,5% higher taxes then the religious folk.

The UK should be next, most towns have one indeed several Pastafarian places of worship, dedicated to Bella Pasta, Pizza Express, St. Carluccio…

I can see a serious point here, not least over tax breaks. The legal arguments could be amazing (eg in what ways does belief in an invisible Jahweh differ from a belief in an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster?).

I think a real selling (conversion) point could be Pastafarian mass – no silly little bits of dry bread with a tiny sip of wine, but plates of yummy spaghetti bolognese washed down with half a bottle of Valpolicella. What’s not to like?

Sorry fellows, but did you mean Rastafarians or Patafarians?; I heard a lot about the former, but the latter is totally new to me.

It was a satirical “religion” (Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) that was created as a way to rebut the push for teaching of creationism in public schools. If schools were going to teach the faith of one religion, they should teach the beliefs of something ridiculous – the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – as well. Followers are called pastafarians because… pasta.

Sorry fellows, but did you mean Rastafarians or Patafarians?; I heard a lot about the former, but the latter is totally new to me.

It was a satirical “religion” (Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) that was created as a way to rebut the push for teaching of creation…

Thanks. The Flying Spaghetti Monster makes more sense to me than a virgin birth, a ressurrection after being 3 days dead and the turning of bread and wine into the body and blood of a guy who died, and then resurrected, 2000 years ago. If the Poles gave official recognition to that pack of nonsense why not grant the same rights to Pastafarians? This is religious discrimination, and if I were to use Muslim “logic”, it’s sheer racism. I condemn the Polish government for its religious intolerance and racist policies.

I’ve searched long and hard to find my place in this world; to understand its plethora of diversity and choking superstitious religions; baffling quantum physics and so on and so on… and then Pastafarianism slaps me in the kisser!! Wow I’m cooked again, add me to your list of followers. Down with Poland I say creedist so ‘n’ so’s (remember, anyone from Poland who dances is a pole-dancer) Three hail pastas, Ravioli, Tagliatelle, Vermicelli. Long may your spaghetti be. And good night.

I’m not entirely sure I support the purpose behind this movement. I think it’s a way to draw attention to the double standard of law on religious organizations, tax privileges, and the absurdity of religious tenets. I’d back it if its purpose was solely to do this, but I hesitate at how earnest it appears in getting itself recognized as an official religion. It seems to hover in a quantum uncertainty between being a joke and being deadly serious. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I am suspicious of Poe’s Law lurking around here somewhere. I gave up asking, “People can’t be that daft?” long ago.

Also, I can imagine how an official could be led to deny it on the grounds of its satirical origin. Not that that alone makes a good case because that’s to commit a genetic fallacy, and how can he possibly know these people don’t actually believe it? Has he interviewed them, had their brains scanned, or used whatever tried and tested method can be used to establish someone’s veracity? I guess if the movement is solely about using its own ridiculousness to demonstrate the ridiculousness of other religions and not really to get established, then I suppose that’s job well done. In any case, I’d be more interested in reducing the number of official religions present, not in increasing their ranks. Plus, I’m given to wonder how effective this campaign can be when compared with ordinary public and political campaigning. I mean, to what degree does it work?

I’m not entirely sure I support the purpose behind this movement. I think it’s a way to draw attention to the double standard of law on religious organizations, tax privileges, and the absurdity of religious tenets. I’d back it if its purpose was solely to do this, but I hesitate at how earnest it a…

I understand your way of thinking about the problem. I can assure you that our project is more effective in Poland than any public or political campaining. Political campaining in Poland in the matters of religion stands on a really low level, and is typically marginalised by the strong lobby of conservatives in the parliament and most of the time is treated as an attack on polish patriotism, which in their opinion is almost the same thing as catholic faith. As for public campaining it is simply put ineffective in Poland, as most of public projects dont find recognition.

Our struggles made so far quite a difference, as even some conservative publicists have pointed out that the system isnt good if it allows a bunch like Pastafarians to register, gaining the same rights as “valid” religions. A small step but a step nonetheless.

I would like to mention here, that there are strange religious organisations recognised in Poland, which didnt have problems with the registration process. Those are Slavic Pagan Community, Local Church in Kwidzyn (its not even stated is this Church is christian or otherwise – it has 70 followers) or my favourite The Brotherhood of Energetic Union (of which almost nothing is known) and many more.

I think creating the “Church ” of Pastafarianism is really a great idea. I was thinking about doing it myself here in the UK. Creating this church just exposes the ridicule of other churches with similar improbable beliefs. I am not only referring to the traditional belief systems but I am including other more recent equally ridiculous beliefs such as Scientology.

Of course Pastafarians know it is a joke! This is the whole point of creating such “Church”!

In fact I think we should all create a chain or Pastafarian “churches” in every country where there are rationalists and atheists wanting to have a voice. It would alow for regular meetings to discuss strategies and claim rights to our “non-belief”.